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CBGB_SECOND_AVE


                                              December 3, 2005

In many respects I feel like I didn't
make much use of my proximity to New
York City when I was a teenager...

But one thing that I did right was that
I saw Patti Smith play many times, on a
half-dozen occasions in just the space of
a few years.

Perhaps the best:

New Year's Eve at
CBGB's Second Avenue,       ("Second Avenue" was CBGB's
at the end of 1977.         attempt at expansion: a
                            large old theater complete
                            with balcony.)

"Richard Hell and the Voidoids" played first,
a band I was glad to see, since I was almost
as big a fan of Richard Hell as of Patti Smith.

   Robert Quine's guitar
   playing on that first
   Voidoids album completely         I asked an older
   blew me away.  I'd never          friend if he had     INWOOD_ANGEL
   heard anything like it            knew of anything
   before.                           like it...

     And Richard Hell's                 He said "Some
     lyrics were amazing...             Beefhart is like
     heavy and funny at                 that."
     same time.  "Love
     Comes in Spurts"                                      Years later,
     was notable for not                                   I sort of know
     being just a dirty                                    what he meant...
     joke...                                               but I don't think
                                                           that Beefhart
        A dream of a love                                  ever did anything
        "insane with                                       to equal it.
        devotion", changes
        with the knowledge:

        "Love comes in spurts,
         in dangerous flirts,
         and it murders your heart,
         they didn't tell you that part!"

     But the really seminal track
     was "Blank Generation", a
     defining "anthem" for the           (Essentially ripped off
     first punks.                        by the Sex Pistols:
                                         "Pretty Vacant").
                                          
                                           
            Seeing Hell on stage was excellent--
            he seemed under-mic'ed, but then   
            I don't think you could ever make       
            him out without a lyric sheet under     
            any circumstances.                      
                                                    
            He had a remarkable piece of           
            stage schtick, where he would       
            look disoriented, and begin         
            stumbling around the stage, then    
            suddenly lurch back toward the      Jagger has his swagger,
            mic just in time to grab it and     But Hell has the stagger.
            go into the next verse.             
                                                
               But the rest of the             
               audience seemed cold
               to him...


  Then Patti Smith hit the stage dancing
  (the entire crowd surged to their feet)
  and she didn't stop once through out the      A grey herringbone
  entire set (and neither did the crowd).       suit jacket flared
                                                around her as she
                                                ponied and pirouetted
      She was doing a brilliant                 with the mic in her hand.
      job throughout this show,
      but I was continually                          (She *did* take
      distracted by the problem                      the jacket off
      of trying to find an unobstructed              after awhile.)
      view, shuffling around to different
      parts of the balcony without being
      too obnoxious about it.

      We were packed elbow to elbow with
      barely any room to breath -- except
      perhaps the extreme back rows of the
      balcony where people were going down on
      each other.


         And (can you believe it?) the New York
         Fire Marshalls decided to shut this
         scene down (What, overcrowded? Really?).

         The band bargained for "one more song"
         and they slid into the 20 minute long
         "Radio Ethiopia".

         And after that they tried to sneak
         in still another song, kicking into
         something hard and fast -- Patti Smith
         signalling the band with the hammer
         sign, pounding the air with her fist --
         but the Fire Marshalls cut the power
         out from under them (and *still* the
         band kept going, playing acoustic-only
         for a minute or so...).
                                                The Toadkeeper later
                                                admitted "that was
  And that was it for the noble                 the best concert I'd
  experiment of CBGB's Second Avenue.           ever been to."

                                                       TOADKEEPER



                              I couldn't remember the year
                              of this myself, but from this
                              I gather it was the close of 1977:

                                 [ref]



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